“We have to be more conscious of how we live our lives in relationship to the environment, other people, and other cultures. We have to give up our arrogance our ’Our way of the highway’ approach.”

Jean Brown-Perry, quilter, Longview, WA

How will we live tomorrow?

“I would like to see the guys who represented us in Iraq, and were involved in community building there, take a role in our political arena.

“So few people serve in the military, we have developed a military caste. What brings out the best aspects of our military are our shared hardships. How do we manufacture that in civilian life? In Ranger School, the challenges were great in difficult conditions. I am a good scolder, but in Ranger School I was so exhausted I would have cut corners if I could, but I couldn’t. My community wouldn’t let me.

“We’ve had this extremely warm year in Seattle. This makes climate change more real to me. I know that’s not rational, but that’s how I acknowledge the change. I was in California this spring and saw the politics around water were severe. There is a lot of action in the Pacific Northwest around extraction. That’s new in the year. For me, there is a correlation between me being aware of climate change and my emerging awareness. I don’t want Seattle to be warm.”

“I pray we don’t go through prohibition again. I love beer and wine. I’m a Type 1 diabetic and used to have a medical marihuana card. I like the legalization of marijuana. I go into the store and they ask, ‘What kind do you want?’ and I’m amazed that I have these options. Marijuana can be fun.”

Tymer, medical marijuana user, Seattle, WA

How will we live tomorrow?

“On my bike.”

Peggy O’Brien, on the first day of her ride Portland to Los Angeles, Bend, OR

How will we live tomorrow?

“I was homeless for six years. Two years ago a friend took me in here. Now I stay in a trailer on a piece of land nearby. Another friend let us put the trailer there after my boyfriend got out of prison. We don’t have electricity or running water, but we have each other. We’re not strung out on drugs anymore. We’re doing better.”

Mindy Malloy, walking the side of the road with a broken bicycle and a purse inscribed ‘Peace and Love’, Long Beach, WA

How will we live tomorrow?

“I will be clean and sober.”

Josh Sundstrom, local fan, Long Beach, WA

How will we live tomorrow?

“I will be with my daughter’s girl. She has two. One has cancer. On Friday’s my daughter takes the three year old to Tacoma for chemotherapy. I stay with the other, who’s 14 months. She’s bow-legged but runs like crazy. She wears me out.”

Richard, retired Weyerhaeuser worker, Raymond, WA

How will we live tomorrow?

“I think about this question often. I interpret “tomorrow” as the middle to distant future. At our current rate, I am not confident that our Earth will be a nice place to live in 100 years. Every year in Hawaii there is a hurricane season. In most years’ past we’d have one or two warnings. These past two weeks we’ve had four!

“I am encouraged by innovations in solar and alternative sources of energy. In Hawaii we are trying to eliminate our dependence of fossil fuel by 2050, but the government I feel is corrupt and ruled by the islands’ monopolies and unions will overlook environmental concerns to make a quick buck.

“How will we live tomorrow? Resources will be fewer and the wealthy will dictate what we have failed to do in our duties as informed and responsible citizens. We will have to be less self centered and greedy if we will keep this island (Earth and Hawaii) sustainable and affordable. With the crop of politicians and capitalistic forces, I don’t see change coming any time soon unfortunately. To make tomorrow a nice place to want to live, we will have to change our current way of thinking. If more people would take time off to travel the country by bike, and ask important questions, maybe that thinking will change more quickly! People doing daily yoga practice would also help.”

“Inertia often wins out, but by taking your life in your hands literally, you can take your life in your hands. We took a year to ride around the country on a tandem bicycle, and it changed us. Technology was different twenty years ago; we sent email updates to family, friends and anyone who cared to know, by dial up modem.

“Since then, we’ve committed to balancing some of those opposing tensions you might have encountered in your journalism. What started us on the road was the death of my mother. At 60, she’d had other plans than to die of lung cancer, but the cancer won and all her ‘somedays’ faded as she did. It took us five years to figure out how to simplify our lives and unencumber ourselves from home ownership and occupational responsibility.

“In twenty years, we’ve gotten good at living simply and living small, while still living for today everyday. Personally, there is no tomorrow.

“Yet how can you live life with abandon, and still be part of a community where tomorrow is what we’re all working toward?

“One day on our tandem tour, we were graced to encounter artist Robert Waldmire. While his posters are works of art, so is his life. Out in the desert along old Route 66, Robert oversaw a station in Hackberry Arizona. We enjoyed our visit with him so much that we were thrilled to see him riding along on a flat-tired Schwinn escorting us on our way. His philosophy has stayed with me: Small is beautiful, old is beautiful, slow is beautiful, safe is beautiful.

“So as we ask how will we live tomorrow, amidst the fast pace of a changing world, I expect our values to guide us. Just because we can do more things than ever before doesn’t mean we should.

“It’s our choice. Inertia wins if you don’t take your life in your hands.”

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About paulefallon

Greetings reader. I am a writer, architect, cyclist and father from Cambridge, MA.
My primary blog, theawkwardpose.com is an archive of all my published writing. The title refers to a sequence of three yoga positions that increase focus and build strength by shifting the body’s center of gravity. The objective is balance without stability. My writing addresses opposing tension in our world, and my attempt to find balance through understanding that opposition.
During 2015-2106 I am cycling through all 48 mainland United States and asking the question "How will we live tomorrow?" That journey is chronicled in a dedicated blog, www.howwillwelivetomorrw.com, that includes personal writing related to my adventure as well as others' responses to my question.
Thank you for visiting.